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INVASION OF HARPER'S FERRY— DANGERS AND DUTIES 

OF THE SOUTH. 



REMARKS 



OF 



SENATORS CLAY OF ALABAMA, GWIN 
OF CALIFORNIA, AND OTHERS, 

DELIVERED 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 13, 1859. 



The Senate resumed the consideration of the 
following resolution, submitted by Mr. Mason, 
on the 5th of December: 

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into 
the facts attending the late invasion and seizure of the arm- 
ory and arsenal of the United States at Harper's Ferry, in 
Virginia, by a band of armed men, and report whether the 
same was attended by armed resistance to the authorities 
and public force of the United States, and by the murder 
of any of the citizens of Virginia, or of any troops sent 
tin i*/lo protect the public property; whether such invasion 
and seizure was made under color of any organization 
intended to subvert the government of any of the States of 
the Union ; what was the character and extent of such or- 
ganization; and whether any citizens of the United States, 
not present, were implicated therein or accessory thereto 
by contributions of money, arms, munitions, or otherwise; 
what was the character and extent of the military equip- 
ment in the hands, or under the control, of said armed band, 
and where and how and when the same was obtained and 
transported to the place so invaded. And that said com- 
mittee report whether any and what legislation may, in 
their opinion, be necessary, on the part of the United States, 
for, the future preservation of the peace of the country, or 
for/the safety of the public property; and that said committee 
have power to send for persons and papers. 

Mr. CLAY. Mr. President, the Senator from 
Wisconsin, [Mr. Doolittle,] in the remarks 
which he submitted to the Senate the other day, 
used this language: 

" I agree, Mr. President, that the time has come when 
we should understand each other, and understand each 
other fully and distinctly; when there should be no con- 
cealment-, when we should make a clean breast of the 
whole matter, and learn how we stand upon this floor." 

In that sentiment I fully and cordially concur; 
and, to ascertain where we stand, reluctantly rise 
this morning with the purpose of addressing the 
Senate, in the spirit of courtesy and of candor. I 
wish to know how we stand, and, endeavoring to 
suppress any feeling of bitterness or of indigna- 
tion, which recent events and some of the debate 
in this Senate might justly excite in any southern 
breast, shall, at the same time, speak with frank- 
ness, impartiality, and truth. I trust that I shall 
be heard with patience, and be answered with 
frankness, for I wish to know where we stand. 

Northern Senators, on the other side of the 
Chamber, profess to respect, and declare that they 
will observe and maintain, all the constitutional 
rights of the South. If you be sincere in this dec- 
laration, if your party intend to keep this pledge, 



there is no cause of difference between us, and we 
may remain, until the final trump shall sound, 
brethren and equals in this Confederacy. But 
pardon me if I mistrust your pledges. While you 
may think that such is the spirit and such the 
tendency of the principles and sentiments which 
you avow, we regard them in a far different light. 
I think that the manner and tone of this debate 
negatives this profession of friendship and fellow- 
ship, of respect and regard for our constitutional 
rights. 

"What have we heard upon this floor? One 
Senator treats the late murderous foray upon Vir- 
ginia with a levity which would be insulting to us 
if it came from any other than one who seems to 
regard all things as a joke, and who probably will 
die, like Rabelais, with a jest upon his lips, and 
never realize the responsibilities of life or of death 
until he is called to judgment. Another ridicules 
the cowardice, the weakness, the impotence of the 
South in suffering a handful of men to seize the 
arsenal, and to defy a town of fifteen hundred or 
more inhabitants. Another entertains us with his 
newly-discovered revelations of the opinions of 
Washington, Jefferson, and other fathers of the 
Union, and framers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and the Federal Constitution, disap- 
proving of slavery. Another endeavors to excite 
domestic dissension and discord within our own 
ranks in the South, by appealing to non-slave- 
holders to come up to the support of the Repub- 
lican party, professing to vindicate their rights, 
and to rescue them from the curse of slavery and 
the oppression of slaveholders; thus striving to 
scatter dragon 's teeth over the plains of the South , 
in the hope, it would seem, that there will spring 
up armed men ready to destroy our domestic in- 
stitutions, to desolate our fields, and to drench our 
hearthstones in fraternal blood. Others, with 
frightful manner, and with fierce and brave words, 
threaten us with coercion if we refuse to submit 
to their authority, no matter however tyrannical, 
unconstitutional, and oppressive. 

These are the evidences of fraternal affection 
and of respect for the South which you tender! 

Mr. President, Wendell Phillips has said, I 
think truly said — speaking of this foray upon 



c& 



Virginia that "it is the natural result of anti- 

8 lav< ry teaching. For one, I accept it; I expected 
it." I admire his ojjurage and his candor. Like 
another corsair, he shuns no question, and he 
n isk. He speaks his whole mind, and 
J feeling of his heart. He indulges in no 
diplomatic or Delphic language, but speaks in 
plain An lo-Saxon what he thinks and feels; and 
i tpplaud him and approve his conduct. 
claim somewhat of prophetic ken for an 
, xpressed dn this floor, now near four 
nee. I said that the natural and necessary 
of [lie anti-slavery teachings of the Rcpub- 
arty was civil strife and bloodshed, and 
dial Li would occur if tliat party prevailed in the 
1 spoke it under a solemn sense of re- 
bility t" my State and to the Union. I 
believed it. My opinions have proven proph- 
and have "been realized at Harper's Ferry. 
How could it he otherwise? I submit to Senators 
r they ought to expect to teach their con- 
stituencies to hate slaveholding and slavehold- 
, rs, .'in! vet tn restrain them from any violation 
of our rights? When you teach them that slavery 
is a crime against man and a sin in the eyes of 
' I en, and lias no guarantee in the Federal Con- 
stitution, how can you expect men to respect our 
>r to refrain from acts of violence and of 
injury? The principles you profess, the senti- 
ments you avow, tlie very platform read in our 
hearing, bind you, as honest men, to exert every 
means within your power to abolish slavery, not 
only within exclusive Federal jurisdiction, but 
within the States in which it exists. 

rnor Chase, of Ohio, expressed to a citizen 
of my State and a resident of the town in which 
I live, what 1 do sincerely believe is the general 
11 nt of the Republican party. The Rev. 
William D. Chadick, a gentleman, a scholar, and 
a Christian, the presiding pastor of a Presbyte- 
rian church in my town, who never desecrated 
the pulpit by political discourses, but has proven 
himself a man of pure piety and peace, says, in a 
to an editor of a newspaper in that town, 
that, in a conversation with Governor Chase, 
during the winter of 1857, at Cincinnati, where 
he had ^one to ascertain where he could colonize 
some forty or more slaves manumitted by a cit- 
Uabama, that Governor Chase closed his 
remarks by saying with emphasis, that — 

•• - I'm In- part, lie would rather never see another free 
negro si t bis tent upon Ohio soil.' I asked his reason. 
'Because,' -aid In-, -their moral influence is degrading.' 
I then remarked, that it appeared to me a glaring incon- 
-i-teiiev in lii id Mini others in Ohio, to love our southern 
ich a to desire their freedom ami clamor for 
their emancipation, and yet hate them so much as to be 
unwilling to allow them a home in their own State; es- 

peciaUj BO, mi by the existing laws in the slave States, 

the negro cannot he liberated and remain where he is. He 
replied : • I ,lo not wish the slave emancipated because I love 
because I hate his master— I hate slavery— I hate a 
man that will own a slave.' " 

Sol,. Mr. President, I sincerely believe is the 

common sentiment of the Republican party; such 

i. substantially, the language of other 

i v. ho have sat upon this floor, or, at 

lie sentiment avowed by them. I do not 

doubtth t1 i,, ior Chase said it, because I know 

Mi. Chadick to be a man above suspicion and 
ul reproach, who never violates the com- 
mandments or dishonors the cause of the Prince 
of Peace, whom he professes to follow. And yet 



I will say that, from my acquaintance with Gov- 
ernor Chase, while he was a Senator upon this 
floor, I was persuaded that he was among the 
last men of that party who would entertain feel- 
ings so rancorous, or indulge in their expression 
in such decided and bitter terms; for he is a, 
scholar of highly cultivated intellect and refined 
feelings, whose deportment here was that of an 
affable, amiable, and philanthropic man. His 
colleague, in former days, who now sits upon 
this floor, has uttered substantially the same 
sentiment. 

Mr. WADE. Does the Senator refer to me? 

Mr. CLAY. I do refer to you, sir. 

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator 
from Alabama yield to the Senator from Ohio ? 

Mr. CLAY. I will, most assuredly. 

Mr. WADE. I only wish the Senator to give 
my language, and the time and place when such 
a sentiment was uttered, that is all. I think he is 
mistaken about it. 

Mr. CLAY. I will do so. If the Senator is 
not misreported in a speech delivered in the State 
of Maine, in the summer of 1855, he declared that 
the North and the South hated each other as cor- 
dially as the English and the Russians. I do 
not pretend to quote his exact language, but I did 
so in his presence in 1856, and he did not ques- 
tion the correctness of my recital. His sentiment 
was that as cordial hatred existed between the 
North and the South as between the English and 
the Russians, who were then carrying on war 
in the Crimea against each other. 

The same sentiment has been often avowed in 
different language, by the distinguished Senator 
from New York, [Mr. Seward,] not now in his 
seat; and I feel no compunction or hesitation in 
referring to his remarks or criticising them, be- 
cause I have done so in his presence, and he did 
not deny the correctness of my quotation or dis 
sent, from the construction which I placed on his 
language. He has denounced, throughout the 
State of New York, the slaveholders of this coun- 
try, in language not so coarse but quite as harsh 
as that used by the Senator from Ohio who sits 
before me. The Senator from Ohio has charac- 
terized us as Vandals who had stolen northern 
rights. A Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sum- 
ner] denounced us as robbers, and declared that — 

"There is no vileness of dishonesty, no denial of human 
rights, that is not plainly involved in the support of sla- 
very." 

The Senator from Ohio declared, that — 

" Slavery, founded in violence, must always be aigres- 
sive ; and the moment it ceases to he aggressive, it ceases 
to be at all. That is its very life ; its being is outrage." 

The Senator from New York denounced us as 
a "perfidious privileged class," and charged us 
with fraud, perfidy, and dishonor. 

Now, sir, I could multiply quotations of sim- 
ilar sentiments from others who sit on this floor, 
or have sat here, and from distinguished Repre- 
sentatives of that party in the other end of this 
Capitol. But we are told that these men do not 
express the sentiments of the Republican party, 
and the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] 
denies that they have the right to speak for that 
party. These sentiments were uttered previous 
to the elections of these distinguished men to the 
Senate of the United States or to the House of 
Representatives; and do they think we are so 



E» 

West. E©fl, .ak.s. a&e. 



r;;> *' . 



stupid, and so ignorant of the character of our in- 
stitutions, as to be persuaded that those elected 
to high offices do hot reflect the feelings and opin- 
ions of the electors ? 

Id this country, office-holders are generally the 
expositors and advocates of principles and senti- 
ments which they know are congenial to the 
minds and hearts of the people who elect them. 
Hence I presume that those men spoke what the 
party whom they represent thought and felt; and 
therefore' say that the Republican party cordially 
hate slaveholding and slaveholders. In saying 
this I intend no personal disrespect. I hate crime 
and criminals, acknowledge no fellowship with 
those who commit a felon 's acts and deserve a 
felon's fate, and do not feel that apology is due to 
anybody for this declaration. It is not incumbent 
upon those who regard slaveholding as a crime 
and slaveholders as criminals, to offer any apology 
or endeavor to excuse themselves for their hatred 
of us and avowal of it before the world. 

I might quote, from northern Republicans, ex- 
pressions of hatred, abhorrence, and loathing of 
us, until the list stretched to the length of the 
calendar of saints, but will forbear, because this 
is not pleasant to me, and may not be instructive 
or entertaining to the other side of the Senate, 
who doubtless have heard, and know much more, 
than any southern man can tell. 

But your hatred for our institutions and for us 
is disclosed in the very platfornvwhich was jeer- 
ingly read in our hearing by the Senator from 
Illinois, in which you denounce slavery as a 
" twin relic of barbarism" with polygamy. Po- 
lygamy is not only in your and our estimation 
an unchristian, heathenish, and barbarous prac- 
tice, but a violation s of the revealed will of God, 
of natural law, and of the rights, interests, and 
duties of humanity. It is not merely a sin, but 
is, also, a crime. Your laws and our laws, and 
the laws of all Christian States, punish it as a 
crime. You denounce slavery equally as a sin 
and a crime, and would, no doubt, proscribe and 
punish it if you had the power. 

Furthermore, your platform declares that the 
negro is entitled to liberty and equality with the 
white man in social and political rights. Do I 
misinterpret it? If so, correct me. I so under- 
stand it, and many of your northern States illus- 
trate it in their acts of legislation. In the State 
of Massachusetts, for instance, you accord the 
negro the elective franchise, enroll him in the mili- 
tia, and admit him to every other civil and polit- 
ical right which the white man can enjoy — ay, 
you grant him even by law the privilege of inter- 
marriage with the white race. Does the Senator 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] condemn this ? 
Will he say, in the presence of the American 
Senate, that his Legislature has erred, or that his 
party has, in conferring on the negro all the civil 
rights, privileges, and immunities of the white 
man, especially in authorizing amalgamation by 
intermarriage? If so, I will with pleasure yield 
him the floor. He declines to do it; and hence 
it must be inferred that he approves the entire 
equality, maintained by the statutes of his State, 
Detween the negro and the white races, even to 
:he extent of commingling their blood by lawful 
r.arriage. The State of New Hampshire is but 
ittlc.if any, behind Massachusetts, and I should 
jropound similar questions to her representatives 



if they were present. Indeed, there are, if I am 
not misinformed, but few of the northern State-; 
in which you have not, by special legislation, ad- 
mitted the negro to all, or nearly all, the rights 
and privileges of the white man. 

Therefore, I repeat, that you maintain by your 
platform, and illustrate by your legislation, your 
belief that the negro is the equal of the white man 
in social and political rights, and that all dispar- 
aging distinctions by legal enactment between the 
two should be obliterated. You thus make a chasm 
between the North and the South so deep and 
wide that it can never be filled up or bridged over 
You cannot pass it without sacrificing your prin- 
ciples or denying your faith. We cannot pass it 
without denying our faith and sacrificing our coun- 
try. Hence, we can never stand together. Henc • , 
we can never submit to your domination until we 
are prepared to pass beneath the yoke, and sur- 
render all that is dear to tis in the present or in 
the future. 

You show your hatred of slaveholding and of 
slaveholders, in other ways, by your non-action of 
legislation as well as by your action. For twenty- 
five years past, our negroes have been stolen or 
robbed from us, either by individuals or by organ- 
ized bands of predatory northern invaders. Tell 
me, northern Senators, what non-slaveholdinir 
State has ever, by any act of legislation, provided 
for the punishment of these depredations upon our 
property, or for the suppression and pretention 
of such offenses ? Is there one ? If there be one, 
I should be glad to hear it. My friend on rny 
right [Mr. Green] says that the State of Illinois 
did it; but I ask him whether it was not the act of 
a Democratic Legislature ? 

Mr. GREEN. Yes. 

Mr. CLAY. I knew it must be. 

Mr. GWIN. I will state to the Senator from 
Alabama that California, year after year, has 
passed a fugitive slave law — a local law. 

Mr. CLAY. I repeat to my friend the same 
question: Was it not the act of a Democrat i' 
Legislature? 

Mr. GWIN. Of course it was, for we never 
have any other. 

Mr. CLAY. Of course it was; but nowhere, 
in any non-slaveholding State of this Union, ex- 
cept where the Democratic party have prevailed, 
and while they have controlled legislation, has 
any act been passed to suppress the thieving and 
robbery which have been carried on upon the slave 
property of the South. Thus, you have counte- 
nanced the robbery of our property and violation 
of our rights; you have encouraged it by your 
non-action. In vain we have complained; we have 
remonstrated; we have invoked you, as brethren, 
living under a common Constitution, in the bond 
of a common Union, and professedly devoted to 
the same common destiny, to discharge your sol- 
emn obligations — obligations devolved on you by 
the comity of confederate friendly States — de- 
volved on you by the solemn injunctions of the 
Federal Constitution — obligations which you are 
adjured by a solemn oath to carry outand maintain. 

Suppose I paused here and went no further, 
might I not truly say that the sentiment of Gov- 
ernor Chase is illustrated by the practice of the 
party to which you belong? Where is the Sena- 
tor of the Republican party, who, in his place, will 
get up and say that he thinks it is the duty of the 



Legislature of the State which he represents, by 
legislation, to prevent these predatory incursions 

to southern States, and the kidnapping, steal- 
ing, and running off of our slaves? Where is 
one who condemns it, and will say that his State 

ulit to suppress these unfriendly and hostile 

cts.' I pause for a reply. Not one. All would 

encourage these depredations upon our property, 

i. ;ist by non-action. All admit, by their silence, 
that their Legislatures are right to discountenance, 
to discourage, and to destroy that institution, as 
far as they dare do. 

But your Legislatures have not been content, by 
inaction, to countenance these depredations upon 
our rights and our property. You have actually 
encouraged them by positive legislation. The 
State of Massachusetts, under Republican admin- 
istration, has passed an act for the purpose of 
nullifying the fugitive slave law. She disfranchises 
the lawyer who" there 'appears for the claimant of 
.1 fugitive slave. She threatens the judge who 
dares try any such cause with impeachment. She 
punishes ignominiously, as well as by fine, the 
jailor or other officer who assists in the seizure or 
the restoration of a fugitive slave. She menaces 
with ignominious punishment all ministerial or 
military officers who aid in enforcing that law. 
Xo doubt she does it with the approbation of the 
Senators from Massachusetts. If not, let them 
now speak. It is not denied, and I take it for 
granted that they approve of this legislation. 
Well , similar acts have been passed in New Hamp- 
shire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine, New York, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, and, doubtless, in other 
States whose legislation I have not had time to 
review. All of those have nullified, so far as they 
could do, the fugitive slave law of 1850, and have 
provided for punishing as a crime the execution, 
or aiding or abetting in the execution, of that act. 
Will not one Senator from either of those States 
declare, in the presence of the American Senate, 
and proclaim to the American people, his disap- 
proval of those acts? Will none here admit that 
they are, as they certainly are, gross infractions of 
the Federal Constitution and inexcusable abuses 
of rights solemnly guarantied by that instrument 
to the South? I pause for a reply. Not one! 
And yet you proclaim in our hearing, boldly, and 
with apparent frankness and sincerity, that your 
party tries and intends to observe and maintain 
all the constitutional rights of the South. Can 
vou make us believe it in the face of these acts ? 
Do you think you can persuade us to credit your 
assertions, when I ask you here to condemn, to 
disapprove, in any terms you may please, these 
acts of your Legislatures, and you sit mute, and, 
by your silence, acknowledge that they express 
vour principles and your sentiments? Where is 
the Senator on that side of the Chamber, who, if 
summoned by a legally authorized officer of the 
Government, either State or Federal, to assist in 
the recapture or the rendition of a fugitive slave, 
would do so ? I venture to say there is not one — 
not one. Yea, your Legislatures have gone even 
further. The Legislature of Michigan has made 
it a penal offense to carry a slave within the limits 
of that State, and I believe the same is true of the 
State of JNew Hampshire. Yet the Senator from 
Michigan, [Mr. Chandler,] the other day, pro- 
tested that he was in favor of observing all the 
•-•^ligations of the Federal Constitution. I ask 



him to say whether he condemns the action of the 
party to which he belongs in the Legislature of 
Michigan, within a few years past, by which they 
have nullified the fugitive slave act and rendered 
it a penal offense to carry a slave even within the 
limits of the State. He says nothing. He admits, 
by his silence, his approbation of this legislation. 

The Senator from Wisconsin tells us, speaking 
for his party, that: 

" As I understand it, we stand here as equals and breth- 
ren, the representatives of equal and sovereian States, 
bound to maintain the Government of the United States, 
the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of the 
United States which are enacted in pursuance of the Con- 
stitution. As individual members of the Senate, we are 
bound, by our oath to the Constitution of the United States, 
to maintain that Constitution, and to maintain the laws 
which are enacted in pursuance of it, and to maintain them 
at all hazards and against all enemies, no matter whether 
they come from abroad or whether they exist at home." 

And, notwithstanding I show him that the mem- 
bers of his party are the enemies of that Consti- 
tution, and the violators of the laws of the United 
States — that they have violated them under the 
solemn adjuration of an oath to support them, by 
their legislation — he, by his silence, approves these 
violations. He does not dare get up and rebuke 
his party. He does not dare, with all his pro- 
fessed devotion to the Union and the Constitution, 
to raise his voice in their behalf. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. President 

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator 
from Alabama yield ? 

Mr. CLAY. Certainly. 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I desire not to enter now 
into a discussion of the question, but simply to 
state to the honorable Senator from Alabama that 
the Constitution of the United States, construed 
properly, gives to the Congress of the United 
States no power to pass a fugitive slave law. The 
Constitution of the United States simply inhibits 
the States from discharging from service the fugi- 
tive who may be held by the laws of the State 
from which he escapes. I shall not now enter 
into the discussion; but at a proper time and on a 
proper occasion, I am willing to do so. 

Mr. CLAY. Mr. President, I shall enter into no 
constitutional argument with the Senator respect- 
ing the fugitive slave act of 1850, or that of 1793: 
but his Legislature has never passed any act for 
the rendition of fugitive slaves, and will the Sen- 
ator say here that he would advise his Legislature, 
in the absence of any congressional legislation 
upon the subject, to pass a law for the punish- 
ment of stealing or robbery of our negroes, and 
providing for their rendition? Would he advise 
his party and the people of the State he repre- 
sents, to pass such an act? He, too, is silent. He 
would not do it. What a bare mockery of our 
rights, what a sheer pretense of regard for your 
constitutional obligations, to tell us that you will 
violate the fugitive slaTe law because you do not 
regard it as constitutional, and yet, at the same 
time, admit that you will pass no act by your 
State Legislatures to maintain that Constitution 
and to vindicate our rights, solemnly guarantied 
by your fathers and ours in that instrument! 

Thus I show that, by your avowed sentiments, 
by your professed principles, and by the acts of 
your party, wherever you have obtained power 
within your States, you evince your hatred of 
slaveholding and slaveholders. Why should you 
get up and express your abhorrence of the crime 



of John Brown? Why should you endeavor to 
exculpate your party from any complicity, either 
in act or in intention or in principle, with John 
Brown, when, on the platform which you flaunt 
in bitter mockery and raillery in our laces, you 
denounce the institution of slavery as a crime de- 
serving the execration of all Christian and civilized 
people? Would yoit receive Brig-ham Young and 
his followers as your equals in social life? Do 
vou think that he is entitled even to the civilities 
and courtesies that are due between gentlemen? 
You cannot say that you do; and yet you' damn 
us to everlasting infamy, together with him, by 
your platform, which you avow is the exponent 
of the principles of your party. I repeat, then, 
how can you expect us to affiliate with you, or 
to feel any of that fraternal love which is the spirit 
of this Union, and without which it cannot long 
exist, when you proclaim to the world, without 
hesitation, your abhorrence of our institutions and 
your hatred of us? Do you think that we are 
more or less than men; that we are devoid of the 
sensibilities of human nature; that we have no 
pride of honor, no pride of State, no pride of an- 
cestry? If you do not, why mock us with your 
professions of fraternal love and respect, and chide 
us for not reciprocating those sentiments? 

The root of all this evil is in the antagonism of 
principle and sentiment that cannot be reconciled 
if you speak what you^mean and believe. You 
proclaim by your platform and maintain by your 
legislation the equality of the negro with the white 
man in social and political rights. You never can 
impress the non-slaveholders of the South with 
that idea. They do not, and never can, believe 
that the negro is the equal of the white man. 
They know that he is not their equal by nature, 
and was not made or declared their equal by the 
Constitution of the United States. They believe 
that slavery is the normal condition of the negro. 
They have unanswerable reasons for that belief. 
The history of the aboriginal negro in Africa, of 
the freed negro in the West Indies, in Liberia, in 
your own States, as well as in ours, attests the 
correctness of this opinion. Look at your own 
statistics; look at the records of your poor-houses 
and prison-houses, and what do they establish ? 
That free-negrodom is the synonym of poverty, 
destitution, pauperism, viciousness, crime, dis- 
ease, and death ! 

I repeat, the root of the evil is your assertion 
of the equality of the negro with the white man. 
The fruits of it are your platform pledge to pro- 
hibit slavery in the Territories of the United States. 
You promise to go no further in your platform; 
but the logical and necessary sequence of that 
pledge and the principles you avow is to prohibit 
slavery wherever the Federal Government has 
exclusive jurisdiction — whenever you get the 
power. There is not a Senator, except, perhaps, 
the Senator from Illinois, who spoke the other 
day ,who belongs to the Republican party, who will 
say here, in our presence, that if he had the power 
in both Houses of Congress, and by the aid of the 
chief executive of his part3% he would not favor 
passing an act abolishing slavery in the Territo- 
ries, if it existed there, and prohibiting slavery 
in [all the Territories of the United States. If 
there is one, let him now speak. Not one of you 
but is pledged by your platform to prohibit and 
abolish slavery in all the Territories of the United 



States. Such was your avowed purpose in the 
canvass of 1856; and such is your purpose tin 
day, although you may not avow ii. Vou pro- 
claim that it is not only the right, but thai i' i 
the duty of Congress, to prohibit in the Territo- 
ries "those twin rcjics of barbarism, polygamy 
and slavery." Now, I submit, if you tee] bound 
by your respect for the laws of God, which are 
violated, as you allege, by the institution of sla- 
very, by your respect for the Federal Constitu- 
tion, which you swore to support — the prim 
object and ulterior design of which you say 
to secure liberty to all men within exclusive Fed- 
eral jurisdiction — how can you escape the obli 
tion, or neglect your duty to abolish slavery in tie 
District of Columbia, whenever you can get tie 
power? Many of you have declared a purposi 
to do so; and your great leader, Mr. Seward, 
has once offered a bill to carry out that purpose 

Is there one of you who will say that Cong] 
possesses greater power over the Territori* 
the United States than over the District of Co- 
lumbia? Not one, I presume. Why are y 
not equally pledged to abolish it in all the fori 
arsenals, dockyards — wherever the Federal flag 
floats and excludes State jurisdiction ? If faithful 
to the principles you profess, if you would carry 
them out to their logical and necessary result . 
must do it. How could you, in view of this plat- 
form, give any countenance or protection 
slavery upon the high "seas? Suppose a v< 
filled with negroes from the port of Charleston 
should sail for the port of Galveston, in Texas, 
and it should be seized by a British or French 
man-of-war, and all the slaves should be confis- 
cated, is there one of you who would, as a last 
resort, redress our wrongs by war? Is there on< 
who would be willing even to claim and insist on 
recompense for our property through our foreign 
minister at either of those courts? I pause for a 
reply. Not one ! We have instances to attest 
that your party will not seek indemnity for our 
losses of such property anywhere, of any Statt 
or nation, under any circumstances. 

Well, Senators, what does this all ilhistrati 
and evidence ? That the declaration of Governor 
Chase is a frank though perhaps impolitic avowal 
of the common sentiment of your party, that you 
I hate slaveholding and slaveholders, and that so 
j intense and bitter is your hatred that you will not 
observe the solemn obligations of the Constitu- 
tion to protect their property and maintain their 
! constitutional rights. Then, if your party obtain 
: power, and you can control the legislation of this 
Government by a dominant majority in the House 
' of Representatives and Senate, and by a chiei 
| executive officer, what are we of the South to 
| expect ? Why, that you will pronounce sentenci 
I of outlawry against slaveholders wherever they 
| go beyond the limits of the slaveholding Sta 
that if they dare venture upon the high seas, in 
a non-slaveholding State, in the Territories, in thi 
', District of Columbia, in any fort, arsenal, or dock- 
| yard in the United States, it must be at the peril 
! of their property and their lives. You condemn 
I them to eternal quarantine within the limits of 
the slaveholding States. And what is your pur- 
pose in doing this ? 

The Senator from Vermont, [Mr. Collamer,] 
whom I respect for his intelligence, his personal 
integrity, and his high bearing, avowed what that 



6 



iose is — and it has been declared by other Sen- 

ors of row party — when he said that the policy 
• t" the northern people, in inhibiting the spread of 

ivery in the Territories, was its ultimate exter- 
mination. To quote his exact language, he said 
the northern people believe "that the more it is 
■ ircumscribed the less is it productive, and the 
sooner will be emancipation;'' Then, forewarned 
. 9 we are that the purpose of your party is the 
iltimate extermination of slavery 

Mr. COLLAMER. Will the gentleman allow 
• , te to interrupt him? 

Mr. CLAY. Certainly. 

Mr. COLLAMER. I take it the gentleman 
understands, from the very terms which he has 
quoted as being mine, that emancipation would be 
ic1 of i In southern people themselves. 

Mr. CLAY. Exactly. 

Mr. COLLAMER. Not that we desire emanci- 
pation in any other way than by the act of the peo- 
ple who are themselves the owners of the slaves. 

Mr. CLAY. I read what the Senator said. 

Now, the Senator disclaims, and I believe he 
honestly and sincerely disclaims for himself, any 
purpose to assail that institution within the States 
i <y an attempt to abolish slavery by congressional 
act. I acquit him of any such purpose as that. 

Mr. COLLAMER. Itcertainly implies nothing 
of that kind — nothing but emancipation by the 
masters themselves, like manumission, sending it 
from the hand. 

Mr. CLAY. But the idea announced by the 
Senator, and expressed in the speech from which 
i have quoted, is that if you will circumscribe 
slavery and confine it within narrow Limits, by 
the increase of that people the time must soon 
arrive when they will cease to be a source of profit 
to the master, and when they will be a tax upon 
him; andhe will, therefore, be constrained, in self- 
defense, to emancipate his slaves. That is their 
mode of achieving the same objectwhichis avowed 
by the Abolitionists, and the only difference be- 
tween them is in the manner of the act. Both 
have the same will and purpose. The one goes 
to it directly by trampling on the Constitution, 
and by exerting all the powers of the Federal Gov- 
ernment to effect it; the other proposes only to 
abuse and pervert those Federal powers, by ex- 
cluding us from the Territories of the United 
States, and thereby indirectly accomplish what 
your radical Abolitionist would do directly and 
undisguisedly. 

Now, the South is told, " we will not respect 
your constitutional rights; we intend to violate 
Them; we intend, whenever a slave escapes from 
your limits, to secure him his liberty; we will 
encourage non-action on the part of our Legisla- 
tures to suppress any forays within your limits, 
of thieves, robbers, and murderers; we will en- 
courage acts of nullification of the Federal fugitive 
slave iaw; we will not give you protection upon 
the high seas, in the Territories, in the District of 
Columbia, anywhere within exclusive Federal 
jurisdiction; we sentence you to outlawry if you 
go beyond the limits of your own States; we con- 
demn you to perpetual quarantine there; we re- 
gard you as lepers whose touch is pollution and 
whose embrace is death; we regard you as crim- 
inals whom we should abhor and condemn;" and 
then we are asked, " Why should the South com- 
plain of us; why should she reproach us with hos- 



tile designs against her institutions; why should 
she threaten secession in the event of the election 
of a Republican President?" Is it not manifest 
to all, who are not willfully blind, or entirely in- 
sensible to all the duties of a man who knows his 
rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, that they 
mock us with that question ? Do you suppose 
that we intend to bow our^iecks to the yoke; 
that we intend to submit to the domination of our 
enemies; that we intend to sit here in your pres- 
ence as hostages for the good behavior of our con- 
quered people— a people who will be under your 
administration, not as sovereigns to rule, but as 
subjects to be governed? Surely, you must en- 
tertain a more contemptuous opinion of us than 
you have even expressed in this platform, if you 
think we can ever submit to that last degradation. 
There are men, I rejoice to say, within your own 
limits, not only of the Democratic party of the 
North, but of the old Whig party, who appreci- 
ate our rights, who esteem our virtues, who re- 
spect our honor, more than you profess to do. 
Millard Fillmore was one, and he spoke, I trust, 
the sentiment of the freemen of the South when 
he said that we would never submit to be governed 
by a Republican President, elected by a sectional 
majority. Said he, in his Albany speech, in 1856: 
"Can it be possible that those who are engaged in such 
a measure can have seriously reflected upon the conse- 
quences which must inevitably follow in case of success? 
Can they have the madness or the folly to believe that our 
southern brethren would submit to be governed by such a 
Chief Magistrate ?" 

I rise here to indulge in no menace. We have 
been menaced, during this Congress and often 
before, by members of your party, with the halter 
and the hangman, if we dare resist your author- 
ity and refuse to submit to subjugation. I know 
that those who are foremost to threaten are gen- 
erally hindmost to execute. I never have uttered, 
and never will utter, any menace. I make no pre- 
dictions, no promise for my State; but, in con- 
clusion, will only say, that if she is faithful to 
the pledges she has made and principles she has 
professed; if she is true to her own interest and 
her own honor; if she is not recreant to all that 
State pride, integrity, and duty demands, she will 
never submit to your authority. I will add, that 
unless she, and all the southern States of this 
Union, with, perhaps, but two, or at most, three 
exceptions, are not faithless to the pledges they 
have given, they will never submit to the govern- 
ment of a President professing your political faith 
and elected by your sectional majority. You re- 
member that, after the adoption of the compromise 
measures, in 1850, Georgia led the van in declar- 
ing that, upon the happening of.either of certain 
events, she would disrupt the ties that bind her 
to the Union. Those contingencies were the re- 
fusal to admit a State into this Union because it 
was slaveholding, or recognized the right to hold 
slaves; any repeal or modification of the fugitive 
slave law; any attempt to abolish the inter-State 
slave trade; any prohibition of slavery in the Ter- 
ritories of the United States, or the abolition of 
slavery in this District, or any place subject to 
the jurisdiction of Congress. Every southern 
State but two, or at most three, by the unanimous 
resolve of their Legislatures, the unanimous re- 
solve of State conventions, both Democratic and 
Whig, and, latterly, American, have pledged 
themselves to maintain those resolutions, and to 



dissolve this Union,ifthey possess the power, upon 
the happening of either of these'contmgencies. 

Now, 1 submit whether there would not be much 
stronger cause, on the part of the southern peo- 
ple, for separation, u pontile election of a President, 
of a party pledged by their platform to carry out 
all these measures. A bare majority of Congress 
might not faithfully express the will of (he people. 
It might be said, in deprecation of any extreme 
action on the part of the South or of any of tin i south- 
ern States, " Wait; let us appeal from the servants 
to their masters — fromCongress to the people of the 
North — and see whether they approve of this un- 
just and iniquitous legislation." But, when the 
people themselves, at the ballot-box, deliberately 
avow a purpose, on the part of the North, to ex- 
clude us from all the Territories of the United 
States, by abolishing slavery therein or prohib- 
iting it therein; to refuse to keep that bond of 
the Federal Constitution which pledges you to re- 
turn the slave upon demand of Ins master; to abol- 
ish slavery within the District of Columbia, and 
wherever the Federal flag floats, I ask you whether 
we would not be either insensible of our rights or 
indifferent to their maintenance, or unworthy of 
them, if we quietly and peaceably submitted to 
the inauguration of your President? 

Mr. President, I forbear to say more. I trust 
now that the country, or at least that section of 
it from which I come, will be fairly forewarned 
of the fact that the Republican party is hostile in 
principle and sentiment to slaveholders and slave- 
holding; and that they are pledged, by their plat- 
forms and their legislative acts, in most of the 
northern States, to war upon the South, by en- 
couraging the destruction of our property in slaves, 
by forcing on us emancipation of them; by abol- 
ishing slavery wherever Federal prevails over 
State jurisdiction — in Territories, this District, 
arsenals, navy-yards, dockyards, and the high 
seas. I trust, sir, that the constituency whom I 
have the honor to represent, being thus fore- 
warned, will prove themselves forearmed whenever 
the time of trial which is threatened shall arrive. 

Mr. GW1N. Mr. President, it was not my 
purpose to address the Senate on this question at 
all, but the speech of the Senator from Alabama 
strikes me as a warning, such as has never been 
given in the Senate of the United States before. 
I believe that that Senator has expressed the opin- 
ion of a vast majority of the people of the slave- 
holding States of this Confederacy. I believe he 
has stated here to-day what will inevitably be the 
action of those States in the event of the election 
of a Republican candidate to the office of Presi- 
dent of the United States. Entertaining this opin- 
ion, I should be faithless to the trust that has been 
reposed in me as a representative of one of the 
sovereign States of the Confederation, whose peo- 
ple are unanimously in favor of this Union and its 
preservation, if I did not add my voice of warning 
at this particular juncture, which is fraught, in my 
judgment, with extreme peril. 

Mr. President, there is a great mistake existing 
in the non-slaveholding States of the Confederacy 
in regard to the public sentiment of the South. 
They seem to entertain the delusion that there is 
no serious idea in the southern States to separate 
from the non-slaveholding States in the event of 
the election of a Republican candidate for the 
Presidency. I believe, not only that such is the 



sentiment and determination of a vast majority 
of the inhabitants of the sla/veholding States no w, 

but that it will be nearly a unanimous sentiment 
in the event of such an el( etion, ami that it will 
then be carried into practice. It is a matter of 
great importance at this period, especially when 
this subject is being discuss«d with the gravity 
with which it has been discussed since the Si 
opened its present, session, that, the inhabitants of 

the i-sia velioh lii ig States should no Longer, labor 

under the delusion that the South will not act. I 
am inclined to think that the people in the .North 
generally do not imagine that the South u ill take 
the step which has been predicted, and which it 
has been averred by the Senator from Alabama 
will be taken. One of the reasons which has in- 
duced the citizens of the non-slaveholding States 
to believe that the South would not carry oul this 
determination is, that, in their opinion, it is hn- 
pnicti*il>le. I think that is a great mistake. 1 
believe that the slaveholding States of this Con- 
federacy can establish a separate and independent 
government that will be impregnable to the as- 
saults of all foreign enemies. They have the 
elements of power within their own boundaries, 
and the elements of strength in those very insti- 
tutions which are supposed in the North to be 
1 their weakness. It seems that the geography of 
the country has not been looked to and examined. 
The local strength of the geographical position of 
the southern States has not been looked at by 
those who think it is impossible for them to es- 
tablish and maintain a southern confederacy. I 
have had the curiosity to examine as to the extent 
of sea-board of the Atlantic States, and the mode 
in which it is divided, and I find, by looking at 
the Coast Survey, that the shore line of the north- 
ern States is only nine thousand three hundred 
and thirty-four miles, while that of the southern 
States is twenty-three thousand eight hundred and 
three miles. To show how this is distributed be- 
tween the several States, let me present the fol- 
lowing table: 

Tahle showing the shore line of Slates on the Jltlantic and 
G-ulf of Mexico. 



States. 



- 3 






Maine 

New Hampshire 
Massachusetts .. 
Rhode Island... 

Connecticut 

New York 

New Jersey 

Pennsylvania. . . 

Delaware 

Maryland 

Virginia 

North Carolina.. 
South Carolina. 

Georgia 

Florida 

Alabama 

Mississippi 

Louisiana 

Texas 





*j ~ 
















o 


o >> 






u rt 




c g 


o 


*5 


— £ 


'■i^£ 






o § g 




- £ 


- b 7. 










427 


1,599 


427 


13 


37 


24 


209 


865 


832 


55 


153 


232 


14 


239 


1,074 


114 


8S6 


1,057 


' 118 


702 


151 


_ 


_ 


106 


29 


136 


506 


44 


1,008 


3,401 


148 


735 


1,690 


299 


1,549 


932 


192 


356 


708 


76 


410 


468 


1,020 


3,005 


860 


33 


284 


313 


42 


206 


137 


616 


1,595 


936 


353 


1,284 


432 



" ~ z. 
3 o S 



-/. 



2,028 
50 

1.074 
208 
253 

1,000 
'820 

165 

1,052 

883 

1,848 

54S 

486 

4,025 

317 

248 

2,211 

1,637 



2,453 

74 

1.906 

440 

1.327 

•.'.1157 

971 

106 

671 

4,453 

2.573 

2,780 

1.256 

954 

4,885 

'630 

385 

a. 117 

2,069 



8 



The southern States have a sea-coast fitted for 
a commerce thai they have not heretofore indulged 
in, because they could more profitably employ 
their capital in cultivating the soil. They have a 
vast Bea-coast indented with fine harbors, and 
thus.- harbors are so fortified, that if they take 
possession of them in advance, they can defend 
themselves against any enemy who may attack 
them. 

Besides, Mr. President, it is not only practica- 
ble, but it is safe for them to do this. One of the 
L r ni\ e charges made against the North by the Sen- 
ator from Alabama, is that for twenty-five years 
there has been a constant system of aggression on 
the property of the slavcholding States, by encour- 
aging the running away of their slaves and throw- 
ing obstructions in the way of their restitution, 
when not a solitary instance is brought forward 
to show that any portion of the people of the 
non-slaveholding States of this Confederacy ever 
attempted to give encouragement to the running 
away of slaves from foreign territory. We never 
nf any encouragement to slaves to run away 
tVi un Cuba or Brazil, although our ships are con- 
stantly in their harbors. The people of the slave- 
holding States believe that if they were a foreign 
government, that if they occupied the same rela- 
tion to the non-slaveholding States of the Atlantic 
•sea-board that Spain and Brazil do, the spirit of 
fanaticism that encourages their slaves to leave 
their masters and protects them when they get 
in the free States, would cease to exist. For this 
reason it is considered that there is safety in a sep- 
arate Government, so far as the possession of then- 
property is concerned. 

There is another mistake in the North, and es- 
pecially on the part of the dominant party of the 
North, at this time, in regard to the institutions of 
the South. There is a belief, probably not among 
the leaders of the party, but certainly among the 
great masses of the party, that there is a conflict 
Between the slave and his master; that the slave 
hates his master, and is kept in slavery only by 
power and by fear. I undertake to say that that 
is a mistake; that the slaves of the South love 
their masters; that there is an affection existing 
in the slave population towards their masters that 
is entirely unknown and unappreciated in the free 
States. "Look at the recent event at Harper's 
Ferry, where the slaves were ready to fight for 
their masters, and the moment they could, they 
escaped from their captors and ran back to their 
masters *houses for protection. That sentiment 1 
believe to be universal among the slaves. There 
is a delusion in the minds of those who regard 
slavery as an oppression to the negro race, and 
hence the fatal steps that are being'taken now to 
alienate one section of the Confederacy from the 
other. Not only do they not seek freedom, but 
it is a curse to them when they get it. Look at the 
free negroes, not only in our own country, but in 
the West Indies, as compared with the slaves of 
the southern States of this Union. I do not be- 
lieve the negro race have ever been so happy, or 
have enjoyed so many privileges, or have so nearly 
approached civilization, at any period from the 
beginning of the world to the present time, as they 
do in the slaveholding States of this Confederacy, 
in a state of slavery. It is a radical mistake for 
the people of the North to believe, as many of 
.them do believe, that there is any likelihood of a 



conflict in the southern States, in the event of a 
separation, between the slave and his master. 
The masters would give their homes to their 
slaves for protection, and they, with the young 
men who are not capable of bearing arms, and the 
old men, would defend those homes, while the 
mass of the population would resist any attempt 
to infringe their rights if they established a 
southern confederacy, and protect this very in- 
stitution. I say those slaves who could be in- 
trusted with arms, with the old men and the 
boys, would protect their homes and cultivate 
their fields, while the men in the prime of life 
were fighting their enemy, if any enemy should 
present himself, which, I believe, will never be 
the case. 

While this debate, on the other side of the 
Chamber, has been conducted somewhat guard- 
edly, there have been sentiments uttered which 
are well calculated to arouse indignation, and to 
stir the flame that is now raging in the country. 
You hear it said here that in the event of the elec- 
tion of a Republican candidate for the Presidency, 
if there is any resistance, they will hang those 
who resist. Now, who are they going to hang? 
One of the Senators indicated very plainly that he 
intended to hang the Governors of States. How 
is he going to get at them ? By invasion ? Is it 
not an indication to the southern States of the 
Confederacy that they will be invaded, and that 
their Governors are to be taken and executed ? 
Is it not a notice to the representatives of those 
fifteen States here, that if they dare to avow these 
opinions, they are to be executed too? Is that 
the spirit that ought to be indulged, or are those 
the words that ought to be used here, if you wish 
to preserve this Confederacy? Is it not a species 
of degradation to hold out to Senators represent- 
ing fifteen slaveholding States, that in the event of 
their resisting, or any portion of their population 
resisting the inauguration and government of a 
Republican President, they are to be put to death 
as traitors ? Is not that the very reason why they 
will now prepare to put themselves in such a po- 
sition that this threat cannot be executed by a 
Republican President, by preparing for the, sep- 
aration of this Government, and putting them- 
selves in such a position that they can resist? It 
is inviting a dissolution of the Union; and it will 
result in that, if this tone of remark is to be in- 
dulged in here and elsewhere. 

There is another reason why the southern States 
should prepare, at this time, for this very event. 
Look at the recent elections in the non-slavehold- 
ing States. The Republican party has triumphed 
in almost every State — I may say every State on 
the Atlantic border, not on the Pacific border; and 
notwithstanding the Union meetings that we have 
heard so much of, and they are very creditable to 
the parties who are engaged in them, I cannot see 
in them anything but the expression of the opin- 
ion of the minority of those States. I cannot 
see, so far as my observation extends, that there 
has been any change in the public sentiment of 
the majority in those States where these meetings 
have been held. I notice, this morninff, that in 
Boston, where a great Union meeting was held, 
last week, the Republicans have succeeded, by a 
large majority, in electing their mayor. I do not 
see any giving way in the majority that rules those 
States, in consequence of these Union meetings, 



9 



of which wc have heard a good deal, and which 
are very creditable to those engaged in them. 
Then why should not the South be forewarned by 
these elections to prepare for the result? for, as the 
Senator from Alabama has said, there arc a num- 
ber of the southern States which are so pledged 
to resist any aggression on their rights, such as 
would be the election of a Republican President, 
that they will be disgraced and dishonored if they 
do not carry out their resolves. They are not the 
resolutions of bodies of men assembled in public 
meet#igs; they arc the resolutions of the Legis- 
latures of sovereign Stairs. 

Now, Mr. President, I undertake to say that the 
southern States must look this question in the face, 
as it has been presented by the Senator from Al- 
abama, to-day; because the organization of the 
Republican party, in my judgment, looks to the 
conquest of the South. It is a sectional party. Are 
there any Republicans in fifteen States of this Con- 
federacy ? If there are any there, it is only in cer- 
tain localities; and, out of those localities, it would 
be dangerous for them to avow their sentiments, 
because the people in those fifteen States believe 
that the utterance of those sentiments would be 
traitorous, and they would be punished accord- 
ingly. Therefore, I consider it nothing but the 
inevitable result of the principles avowed by that 
party that the South should be prepared for resist- 
ance, in the event of such an election. How could 
a Republican President carry on the Government 
in the southern States ? Where would he get his 
Federal officers — his collectors of customs, his 
marshals, his district attorneys, his postmasters? 
I believe that, in a large majority of the slavehold- 
ing States, men who would accept commissions 
from a Republican President would be looked upon 
as public enemies, and they could not execute the 
duties that were imposed upon them by the Pres- 
ident of the United States. How would they 
permit postmasters in South Carolina and Georgia 
and Alabama and those great slaveholding States 
to be the recipients of documents that might be 
circulated to excite servile insurrection ? Sir, it is 
impracticable. It is impossible for a Republican 
President to administer this Government over the 
slaveholding States of the Confederacy, in my 
judgment. 

Entertaining this opinion, I am not surprised 
at the declaration which has been made by the 
Senator from Alabama, and indicated by other 
Senators in this discussion, that they will not sub- l 
mit to such a rule; and it is because I love this 
Union and represent a constituency who are unan- 
imously in favor of its preservation, that I have 
presented the views which I have submitted to- ' 
day.. I say that a dissolution of the Union is not ' 
impossible, that it is not impracticable, and that 
the northern States arc laboring under a delusion 
if the"y think that the southern States cannot sap- i 
arate from them either violently or peaceably; [ 
violently if necessary. They can take possession ■ 
of all the public property within their limits, and ; 
prepare against any aggression from the non- ' 
slaveholding States^ or any other Power that may i 
choose to infringe upon what they conceive to be ' 
their rights. It is because I believe they can sep- 
arate, and that they will separate in the event to ' 
which I have alluded, that I have referred to the 
speech of the Senator from Alabama as a warning 
to every man who loves this Union, that now is 



the time to present the question in its true form, 
and that the election <,r a Republican I 'resident is 
tlie inevitable destruction of this Confederacy. I 
have believed itfora longtime. 1 Btated it long 
since as a matter of opinion. It is not a question 
in which (hose whom I represent are particularly 
interested, fur we are two thousand miles away 

from any slaves, but I have said it is a solemn 

warning. I want this Union to he pi rpetual, to 

last as long as the world lasts; lint no such ele- 
ment, ought to be introduced into the administra- 
tion of public affairs as will render its destruction 

I certain. The only movement that can lie made 

i in the northern States is such as I have indicated, 

to appeal to the citizens of the North to labor no 

I longer under the delusion that the southern States 

do not intend to act. I believe they do. I am cer- 

| tain that they will act. I think so, not only from 

my intercourse with their representatives here, 

but from personal intercourse with that people, 

and I think their representatives here are behind 

■ the public sentiment of the southern States, a 

i large majority of them; and the danger which now 

[ environs the country is greater than it ever has 

i been before. 

I know that heretofore threats of disunion have 
I been fulminated, but I have never believed until 
j within the last few years that the danger was so 
great. I have always believed that something ' 
could divert it. Why? Because the parties that 
existed in the country, existed in all the States. 
I do not pretend to cast any odium onthcRcpub- 
; lican party, or their leaders, or their doctrines; but 
( I say that with the view which the southern States 
entertain in regard to the platform of that party, 
as expressed by the Senator from Alabama, it is 
' utterly impossible in the event of the success of a 
Republican candidate for the Presidency, that the 
i southern States will not resist, will not break up 
I this Government as a matter 'of necessity and 
,' safety. Entertaining these opinions, I think that 
i this discussion should not have been precipitated 
at this particular juncture. I think that the Sen- 
! ator from Illinois had better have let this resolu- 
tion pass without bringing up this old question of 
conflict in Kansas. It would have been better for 
him to allow the report to come from the proposed 
committee, and let us ascertain the public senti- 
ment of the country upon that official report. But 
now, as the Senator from Illinois has introduced 
the Kansas question, what good can result? If 
the South were the aggressors in that case, have 
they not been conquered? If they tried to force 
slavery into Kansas, has not the result been that 
it is as ultra an abolition Territory, and is likely 
to be as ultra an abolition State, as any in the Con- 
federacy ? If, as in the case of Russia, when once 
she tried to conquer Turkey and take possession erf 
Constantinople and was forced into a peace by 
the surrender of Sebastopol, the South by aggres- 
sion did attempt to force slavery into Kansas, has 
she not been defeated in the contest, and is not 
Kansas now as ultra an anf-slavery community 
as any portion of the Confederacy ? Why bring 
that forward now as any justification for the out- 
rage which has been committed at Harper's Ferry 
upon the State of Virginia? Why bring up the 
question of slavery in the Territories ? There is 
now scarcely a foot of territory where slavery 
can be profitably introduced in the United States. 
The North, the non-slaveholding States, have the 



10 



majority in both Houses of Congress, and unless 
there is a new acquisition of territory you may 
say that slavery is circumscribed at this very time, 
and they have the power of circumscribing it by 
refusing to ratify any treaty that any President 
might make to add territory which might be filled 
with aelave population; .for it requires a two-thirds 
vote of the Senate to ratify any treaty. They have 
all the power. Slavery is notand will not be profita- 
ble in the present Territories of the United States, 
New Mexico or Utah. If it were, the people would 
introduce it there, because they could introduce 
it with safety. There is no territory now within 
the borders of the United States, where it can be 
successfully and profitably employed, as is evi- 
denced by the fact that it has not been introduced 
into those Territories, and there can be no new 
acquisitions of territory where slavery would be 
profitable unless the North acquiesces. 

Then why is it necessary to introduce this agi- 
tation of slavery in the Territories, and the past 
conflict in Kansas? What can be the object of 
the Senator from Illinois, unless it be to embarrass 
the investigation properly sought by the Senator 
from Virginia? I hope that Senator s amendment 
will be voted down, and that we shall have this 
investigation. I believe that the result of it will 

Srove that there has been complicity, not of the 
istinguished leaders of their party, but of a nu- 
merous class who belong to that party, who are 
stimulated by the spirit that was justly described 
by the Senator from Alabama this morning, of 
hatred to the institutions of the South; and it will 
go on if they meet with success; and leaders, more 
moderate than they, will be set aside if they do 
not come up to their views in carrying on this war 
against the institutions of the South. 

Mr. President, I want this Union to be pre- 
served and to be made perpetual, and in order that 
it may be perpetual it is necessary that the Sena- 
tors on the other side when appealed to, as they 
have been this morning, should at least give a 
gleam of hope to the southern States that the policy 
of their incoming administration, if they should 
succeed in electing a President, will be different 
from what the local policy of their States has 
heretofore been with reference to the institution 
of slavery. If not, as I stated before, I believe a 
separation will be inevitable. 

The Senator from Illinois, the other day, asked 
why the South looked upon the people of the non- 
slavehokling States as their enemies, who wished 
to put the knife to the throats of their wives and 
children ? It is because they believe the doctrines 
that are taught by his party lead inevitably to that 
result. Whether they are right or wrong, they 
believe it: that is the sentiment of the people of 
the southern States, and I believe that they intend 
to resist the acquisition of power in this Confed- 
eracy by his party, because they think that the 
election and installation of a Republican President 
would be their conquest. If such a President 
could not have collects of customs at Charleston, 
Mobile, and New Orleans, and other ports, he 
would send his revenue cutters there with his col- 
lectors on board, to collect the revenues, and they 
would be in a degree blockaded. Thus the South 
would be blockaded; and ultimately, probably, 
almost without the means of defense, they would 
be forced into a war of bloody results; whereas, 
if they were to take possession of all the Govern- 



ment establishments that are within the southern 
borders, as in my judgment they will, in the event 
of the election of a Republican President, before 
his installation, they believe that they are power- 
ful enough to resist any attempt to infringe on the 
new order of government which they will have es- 
tablished. By waiting, they put themselves in the 
power of the Federal &overnment;but by prepar- 
ing for the event in advance, they put it out of the 
power of any government on the face of the earth 
to inflict on them what they conceive to be a seri- 
ous or fatal injury. This being the opinic% of a 
vast majority of the people in the southern States 
of the Confederacy, I say, in the event of the suc- 
cess of a Republican candidate for the Presidency, 
the southern States, in my judgment, will pursue 
the course that has been shadowed out by the 
Senator from Alabama to-day. 

Mr. HALE. Mr. President, I do not intend 
to occupy the attention of the Senate long; but, 
in my humble judgment, the position of affairs is 
presented this morning in a more distinct light 
than it has been before; and if the position as- 
sumed by the Senator from California — and I de- 
sire to meet this subject plainly — be true, we have 
been living under a delusion — an utter delusion; we 
are not a union of States; thefree Statesare subject 
provinces, and our people do not choose a Presi- 
dent. They but perform an idle ceremony. You 
sit there, according to the enunciation made this 
morning, the representatives of fifteen Stages, and 
you proclaim to the majority of this Union that, if 
they dare to exercise their prerogative and choose 
a President representing the views which they 
entertain, (and the supposition presupposes that 
they are the views of a majority of the people of 
these United States, or else they could not elect a 
President,) you will dissolve the Union. You 
substantially, by this declaration, declare that this 
is an idle mockery, a delusion, and a deception. 

********* 

Is this an appeal that is made to us? It is not 
an appeal to us as freemen, not as the represent- 
atives of free States, not as men. If you respected 
us or our constituents, you could not make such 
an appeal. It is not an appeal to be made to men, 
or to freemen. It does not address itself to our 
reason, but to our fears. I know it has been said, 
sometimes, reproachfully, that the only way to 
appeal to us is either to address our fears or our 
pockets. This declaration to-day, made upon the 
floor of the Senate, is based upon the idea that 
there is nothing manly, nothing patriotic, nothing 
that spurns degradation, in ourselves or in the 
people whom we represent. 

Sir, if Senators think that that is the way this 
difficulty is to be solved, it is not for me to com- 
plain. I thank them for the warning; and I ask 
them, if they feel any sort of interest to know how 
itWs received by the people of the free States, to 
read the returns that will come from the next 
election, and ascertain how many are scared, 
how many are frightened, how many are driven 
by such an appeal, as it has been called. 

*#***•#*** 

I think, and I believe history justifies me in it — 
other gentlemen can speak for themselves — that I 
represent a people that cannot be driven. They are 
few; but when they were much fewer than they 
are now, when they were not one half in number 
what they are now, they left their plows in the 



11 



field, and they left their women to look after the 
homesteads, and they turned out from mountain 
and valley and bared their breasts to the invading 
foe, wherever and whenever he might come. Sir, I 
dohopeinGodthatthedrfyisdistant, very distant, 
when their mettle or their courage shall be put to 
the test,, in anything that bears even the semblance 
of a fraternal contest; but let me tell gentlemen 
that they will find in the end they are mistaken. 

Mr. GWIN. Mr. President, in the few remarks 
which 1 submitted, I did not intend to say any- 
thing against the Republican party, but I desired 
to call the attention of that party to the remarks 
of the Senator from Alabama, and I observed that 
that Senator had spoken his true sentiments, and 
the sentiments of those whom he represents. They 
believe that the principles of the Republican party 
are destructive to the constitutional rights of the 
slaveholding States, that they can only preserve 
those rights by resisting the principles of that 
party: and if a President of that party were to be 
elected and installed, it would be destructive to 
their constitutional rights. I stated that he spoke 
the sentiments of his people, and that the South 
would act on his convictions, and break up this 
Government, in such an event. That was all I 
said: it was no threat. 

Let me call the attention of the Senator from 
New Hampshire to the vote in the last presidential 
election; and how significant it was. I do not 
now recollect what was the popular vote of the 
slaveholding States; but we will assume that it 
was five hundred thousand. How many of those 
votes were cast for the Republican candidate for 
the Presidency ? In but few of those States was 
there any Republican electoral ticket — I do not be- 
lieve in more than one or two — and in a large ma- 
jority of those States, there were not men enough 
who would avow the principles of that party, or 
who would dare avow them, to beV electors. It 
was a purely sectional contest on their part, while 
on the other hand the Democratic candidate, who 
received the electoral vote of every slaveholding 
State, with one exception, received the vote of 
one million two hundred thousand freemen in the 
free States' of this Confederacy. Sir, nothing is 
more significant than the result of the last presi- 
dential election; and the result of the State elec- 
tions which have since taken place. They all 
show that the Republican party is a sectional party, 
that it has no existence in the southern States, and 
never can have any existence there, and that the 
success of a Republican candidate for the Presi- 
dency is to be achieved exclusively by the nofi- 
slavehokling States, and by the majority they have 
in the electoral college; and that the people of the 
South, regarding the principles of that party as 
destructive to their constitutional rights, will act 
on their convictions in the event of the success of 
a Republican presidential candidate, and the re- 
sult will be the destruction of our present form of 
Government. That was all the statement I made. 
I appealed to the fears of nobody, of no section, 
of no party; that was not my object; but I did 
appeal to the judgment of those who entertain 
certain principles, whether it was best for them to 
persevere in those principles when they saw that 
the effect of their triumph must be the destruction 
of the Government. Now, I do not profess to be 
braver than anybody else; I certainly am not 
brave enough to adopt and carry out any line of 



policy that would jeopardize the existence of this 
glorious Confederacy, and I have in a small way 
attested it. 

In 1850, when I cane here as one of the 
Senators selected by the people of California to 
present their constitution for admission as one 
of the sovereign States of this Confederacy, the 

delegation called on various gentlemen of distin- 
guished position in the Senate ;h ii | House of Rep» 
resentatfves; and, among others, on the then 
illustrious Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. Clay,) 
and we requested him, and those other gentlemen 
whom I shall not name — because it was on his 
advice that we called on them — to favor the im- 
mediate admission of the Suite of California into 
the Confederacy. We were without any govern- 
ment. California had first been conquered, and 
then purchased from Mexico; and the United 
States had not even given us a territorial govenu 
ment. We had not a solitary civil officer of this 
Government within the borders of California . We 
were living under a purely military government^ 
at the head of which was a colonel in the Army 
of the United States, who assumed and exercised 
all authority over that vast extent of country. 
We had no government of our own, except such 
as we were compelled to form; and, in this state 
of things, we adopted a State constitution, and 
under it we presented ourselves here as represent- 
atives of the State; and we wanted immediate 
admission. Mr. Clay, with others, expressed his 
desire that the State should be instantly admitted, 
and said he would exert himself for its instant 
admission.- After this statement by him and otlters, 
I went away; I thought I had nothing further to 
do; I had performed my duty by presenting the 
matter to those who had the power. The Presi- 
dent of the United States said the same thing; he 
declared that he would send in the constitution, 
and urge the immediate admission of the State. 
Thus, having no doubt of the immediate admis- 
sion of California, I left this city temporarily. 
While I was away in New York, I found that 
the Senator from Kentucky had changed his po- 
sition, and had gone against the immediate admis- 
sion of California. I came to Washington and 
had an interview with him; and he told me that 
a number of members of the lower House of 
Congress, and among them, I believe, I see now 
before me a Senator of this body who was one 
of the spokesmen, had called upon him and had 
pledged their honor to him that they would never 
permit California to be admitted as a member of 
the Confederacy until the question of slavery in 
the Territories was settled; that there was a suf- 
ficient number who were determined, by resort- 
ing to the rules of the House, to prevent the pas- 
sage of a bill admitting California as a State, and 
that they intended to prosecute their determination 
even to the destruction of the Government. Mr. 
Clay said he was thoroughly convinced of the 
truth of their assertion, and hence he had determ- 
ined not to press the separate admission of Cali- 
fornia into the Union. 

I acquiesced in that view of the Senator from 
Kentucky. I did not want the admission of 
California to cause the destruction of the Union 
itself, and hence I was willing to have her just 
rights delayed; the privileges to which she was 
entitled, as a portion of the Confederacy, over- 
looked for a time, rather than that her admission 



12 



should result in the destruction of the very Con- 
federacy of which she sought to be a member. I 
was not, like the Senator from New Hampshire, 
brave enough to jeopardize the existence of the 
Government in order to accomplish an object 
which I knew to be right and proper, and that 
was the immediate admission of California as-a 
sovereign Slate. I was willing to bide my time 
rather than to bring this injury and danger upon 
the country. 

Further, sir, at a later period of that contest, 
which is familiar to many of those in this Chamber, 
who were then participants in it, it is well known 
that the conflict became more fierce, and I was called 
on by the President of the United States in order 
to make a demonstration which he suggested, to 
.separate these questions, one from the other, to 

i'oin my colleagues — the other Senator and the two 
Lcpresentatives from California — in signing a 
memorial and protest against connecting the ad- 
mission of California with the other compromise 
measures; and he pledged himself that if I would 
join my colleagues in sending that protest to the 
two Houses of Congress, California would be ad- 
mitted in a week, and I would be in my seat in 
the Senate. I told him of the interview I had had 
with. the Senator from Kentucky, and said that as 
far as I was concerned, I would not force the 
question when I believed, as I then did, convinced 
by the experience of those older than myself, that 
it would jeopardize the Confederacy. I was not 
brave enough to seek to accomplish what I knew 
was immediately just and right to the State which 
I represented, and to press it so as to jeopardize 
the existence of the Union, and that is what I 
have indicated here to-day. I have submitted to 
the judgment of those who" represent the Repub- 
lican party, even if they think it is right, whether 
it is proper to press the success of a political party 
in this country to the point of destroying the Gov- 
ernment. That was my suggestion. I said that 
I made the suggestion because I represented a 
constituency in favor of the preservation of the 
Union, although they are very remote from the 
seat of your Government. We revere this Union, 
we honor it, and we desire to preserve it. My 
only object in the remarks which I made, was to 
present to the country the idea that there is dan- 
ger, and to submit whether it is not best to pause 
before parties get so much excited that it will be 
impossible to prevent a collision. 

Mr. WILSON. I rise, Mr. President, for the 
purpose of saying a word or two in reply to the 
remarks which have been made by the Senator 
from Alabama. That Senator stated , and repeated 
the statement often during his speech, that the 
people of the North hated slavery and hated slave- 
holders; and he quoted remarks said to have been 
made by Governor Chase, and made the declara- 
tion that we of the free States concurred in that 
sentiment. 

Mr. CLAY. The Senator does not fairly rep- 
resent me. I said the Republican party; not the 
people of the northern States. 

Mr. WILSON. Very well, sir. I did not in- 
tend to misstate the Senator. I know that he 
referred to the Republican party. I think there 
must be some mistake in the remark attributed 
to Governor Chase. I have known Governor 
Chase long and well; and if there be a man in 
America who does not entertain such a sentiment 



as has been attributed to him, I believe he is that 
man. I think there must be some mistake about 
that matter. I have no doubt about it. I tell 
the Senator from Alabama that he does to us on 
this floor injustice, if Ire believes that we hate 
slaveholders. He does the Republicans of the 
free States the grossest injustice in making the 
declarations he has made here to-day. The Sen- 
ator from Alabama may travel in every free State 
of this Union, and he will be received with the 
kindness and the courtesy that the people extend 
to any of us on this side of the Chamber. 

Mr. CLAY. Not if I carried my slave with 
me; because, by the laws of your State, of New 
Hampshire, and of Michigan, I should incur the 
perils of a felon if I carried my slave to any of 
those States and sought to hold him there. 

Mr. WILSON. The Senator from Alabama 
has no right to carry his slaves into a free State; 
and the moment he takes them there, they become 
as free as himself. Now, sir, I say that the Senator 
may go into Faneuil Hall, he may go into Tremont 
Temple, he may go into any gathering of the Re- 
publicans of Massachusetts, and he will be treated 
with the kindness and the courtesy that should be 
extended to a Senator of the United States. 

But, sir, being up, I wish to say a word in re- 
gard to the remarks which have just been made 
with reference to the dissolution of this Union in 
a certain event. I Avish to say to Senators that 
these declarations that the Union of these States 
is to be dissolved if the people of this country 
choose to elect a Republican President, are re- 
ceived in the free States, as they should be re- 
ceived, with the sternest condemnation; and that 
the declarations made in this House and in the 
other during the last few days, have aroused not 
a poor, miserable, cowardly spirit of servility, but 
a manly spirw in our people, a determination to 
exercise their constitutional rights, and express 
their opinions freely through the ballot-box. 

Senators have referred? to Union-saving meet- 
ings, and they judge of those meetings rightly. 
They are of no earthly significance, and no at- 
tempt here, in Washington, to get up a crisis can 
make them of significance. A Union-saving meet- 
ing was recently held in my State, and we arc 
told to-day that we have elected a Republican city 
government in the city of Boston, following im- 
mediately after that meeting. Well, sir, that 
meeting was enough to make the people of Boston 
elect a Republican city government. I have not 
a*word to say against the very respectable gentle- 
men who took part in that meeting, nor in regard 
to the political leaders who get up these Union- 
saving meetings; but I say to the Senate and to 
the country, that the meeting in the city of Bos- 
ton does not weigh a feather's weight in my State. 
I put myself on the record to-day, and I declare 
that, notwithstanding the threats of a dissolution 
of the Union in certain contingencies, the people 
of Massachusetts will give fifty thousand solid 
majority for whoever may be nominated as the 
Republican candidate for the Presidency. Gen- 
tlemen must not imagine that we are to be in- 
fluenced by any attempt to frighten us, or to get 
up a crisis, or to appeal to the conservative sen- 
timent of the North. Why, sir, the conservative 
sentiment is with us, the property is with us, the 
intelligence is with us, the personal character is 



13 



with us, in the free States, and the patriotism is 
with us— that patriotism wMch under no circum- 
stances ever threatens to dissolve the Union — 

that patriotism which will stand by the national 
Government in any emergency in upholding the 
Union of these States and the perpetuity of the 
just rights of the States and of the people. 

Mr. CLAY. Mr. President, I shall not con- 
sume the time of the Senate in replying to what 
has fallen from the Senator from Massachusetts. 
I furnished proof of the truth of my position <>f 
the hatred of his party to slaveholders as well as 
slaveholding. I stated that his colleague had 
avowed more than that, in alluding to the "slavc- 
holding«o!igarehy of the South," though I did 
not consume the 'time of tin' Senate byreadingit; 
and his people have indorsed those sentiments by 
his reelection. He denounced slavery as the sum 
of ail villainies; and he slaveholders as — 

" Base, false, and heedless (if justice. It is vain to ex- 
pect that men who have screwed themselves up to become 
the propagandists of this enormity will be restrained by any 
compromise, compact, bargain, or plighted faith. As the 
less is contained in the greater, so there is no vileness of 
dishonesty, no denial of human rights, that is not plainly 
involved in the support of nn institution Which begins by 
changing man. created in the iina<;e of God, into a chattel, 
and sweeps little children away to the auction block." 

Can any terms of hatred, of abhorrence, ofutter 
loathing- and contempt for the people of the southern 
States, those who you declare are the ruling power 
there, !>e expressed in the English language ? Are 
not these expressions of hatred as bitter, as in- 
tense as could possibly be uttered? Yet they are 
indorsed by your people. You cannot possibly 
affect to have any regard or any respect for our 
constitutional rights when we cannot recover a 
fugitive slave within your limits, except by strat- 
agemorbyforce. I have heard upon this floor, and 
that Senator has heard, expressions of joy and 
triumph at the fact that the recovery of Anthony 
Burns cost $30,000. You, by your legislation, 
have avow r ed your hatred of slaveholders and 
slaveholding to such an extent that you not 
only nullify and abjure a solemn obligation of the 
Federal Constitution, which you once respected 
and enforced, but you punish your own citizens 
\vho attempt to enforce that law. 

The same thing is done in the State of New 
Hampshire; and yet, you Senators rise in your 
places and complain of these imputations of hatred 
to our constituencies, and reproach us for de- 
claring that we are not willing to live under a 
Government administered by you; reproach us 
with a want of love of this Union; with a want of 
fealty to its obligation; and, at the same time, ar- 
rogate the right to violate our constitutional rights 
with impunity. Do you think that we will endure 
the burdens of this Government while you deny 
us its benefits? Do you think that we are prepared 
to keep the bonds of the Constitution when you 
violate them ? Do you think that while, by your 
legislation, you countenance and encourage dep- 
redations upon our property, we can regard you 
as friends, or, that we can .servilely submit to 
such abuses of our rights? If you do, you must 
think us gifted with some of that God-like charity 
and forbearance and long-sufferance which, when 
smitten on one cheek, would turn the other to the 
issailant; or, you must think us unworthy of the 
freedom which was purchased by the blood of our 
;ires as well as yours. 



Imade no menaces; did not threaten the North 
with compulsion; did not threaten to force tin 
North to any issue or any position; but I showed 
that your party was solemnly pledged, by your 
platform and by the avowals of your lenders 
throughout the northern States, to maintain am! 
carry out in the administration of this Govern- 
ment, when you get the power, measures which 
we regard as an infraction of our constitutional 
rights; and not only that, measures which you 
yourself have forewarned us are intended to de- 
stroy a domestic institution upon which our social 
and political organization is based; measures 
which tend to revolutionize our society, to deluge 
our land in blood, and to desolate our fair fields; 
and yet you complain of an intent and purpose on 
our part to alarm the northern people, and scare 
them into acquiescence to our terms of govern- 
ment ! What new terms have [ proposed— what 
other terms than are found in the Constitution, 
the bond of union? None whatever. You avow 
here on this floor your purpose to violate this 
bond; and turn round, with seeming raillery and 
mockery, and complain of us because we say that 
when you have broken this bond we will cease to 
maintain it, and refuse to become mere subjugated 
provinces of a Government which denies us our 
equality — denies us the. rights which you have 
pledged yourselves to observe and maintain. 

The Senator himself has time and again avowed 
sentiments, not in express terms declaring his 
hatred of slaveholders, but tantamount, in my 
opinion, to such a declaration. I have, not troubled 
myself to search his record, but if this debate is 
continued, I think I shall present him with some 
evidence of this assertion. I know one thing, 
that he has pledged himself to labor for the eman- 
cipation of the three and a half or four million 
slaves in my country; he has declared himself for 
immediate and unconditional emancipation; and 
he has joined hands with Wendell Phillips in the 
achievement of that end. Why, then, should he 
display any sensitiveness when I impute to his 
party, and to him, hatred of slaveholders, and a 
purpose to exterminate that institution in our 
midst? Ay, sir, how can Senators on the other 
side profess not to hate slaveholders, when they 
profess to regard them as criminals, violators of 
the laws of God, and of the rights of humanity? 
How can they affect any other than aversion or 
dislike, which are the synonyms of hatred, to- 
ward those whom they denounce as barbarous, 
as savage, as ferocious, as guilty of unchristian 
and uncivilized practices; and that is the plain im- 
port of your own platform. It is upon its very 
face a libel upon the institutions of fifteen States 
of this Union, and upon the dominant power, as 
you declare, within those States, unless, forsooth, 
we are as base and as degraded" and depraved as 
you insinuate. 

I have not endeavored to increase the excite- 
ment to which the Senator has been pleased to 
allude. God knows that I have a higher purpose 
to serve here than that of party or myself. I have 
nothing to desire and nothing to attain beyond 
the high position which I here occupy as an em- 
bassador of a sovereign State. I seek no more 
of my constituency. I never have sought, and 
never expect to seek, other honors at the hands 
of any other people or person than my own con- 
stituency. I have no motive to achieve, either, in 



14 



producing excitement in our midst. We, it is 
true, have be< d exaspi rated to a degree which has 
been unprec* dented hitherto in the history of this 
country. We have seen principles and sentiments 

avowed by the dominant party in the northern 
Section of the Union, culminating- in treason and 
civil war. We have cause for exasperation; but 

in i i came from your side, and from your 

party. We Mere menaced with compulsory sub- 
mission to your authority; we were insulted with 
the threat of the hangman and the rope; and it 
was in reply to these grossly insulting remarks 
that I spoke with calmnes~s, with respect, towards 
you, and explained the ground upon which we 
planted ourselves. I forbore even to pledge my 
State to separation. I forbore to promise or pre- 
dict what she would do. I only spoke of what 
was due, in my opinion, to her own honor, to her 
own welfare, to her own sovereignty within the 
Union . 

I had not intended to do so, but since the re- 
marks which have fallen from the other side, I 
will go further and invoke the attention of the 
Senate and the country to a further proof of this 
hatred, or, if you prefer a milder word, this aver- 
sion or dislike of slaveholders, as well as of slave- 
holding. I shall quote a remark from a Sena- 
tor, who certainly stands at the head and front of 
the northern Republican party of this Union, and 
is entitled to that preeminence by his superior 
abiiitieSj his superior attainments, and his supe- 
rior services to that party — a Senator, the bare 
mention of whose name by the Senator from 
Massachusetts, (if the newspaper press of the Say 
did not misrepresent,) in the Republican conven- 
tion at Philadelphia, was greeted with such a 
testimony of reverence on the part of that assem- 
blage as has been accorded to no other man within 
my knowledge in his day and time; for the papers 
report that the whole assemblage rose spontane- 
ously and simultaneously to their feet and greeted 
the mention of his name with deafening applause — 
a Senator who has been hitherto the leader of his 
party in all their measures of oppressive policy 
towards the South; and I say that I have reason 
to believe that he smoke the sentiment of the great 
Republican party — I mean great in numbers — be- 
cause he has been thus honored by them, and lie- 
cause since he uttered the remarks which I shall 
read, he has been reelected to the Senate of the 
United States. Of course I mean Mr. Seward. 
The Senator from New York, in 1855, speaking of 
the many bonds of the Union upon the North, 
said : 

" The slaveholders, in spite of all their threats, are bound 
to it by the same bonds ; and they are bound to it also by a 
bond peculiarly their own — that of dependence on it for their 
own safety. Three million slaves are a hostile force con- 
stantly in their presence, in their very midst. The servile 
war is always the rrAst fearful form of war. The world 
without sympathize with the servile enemy." 

Now, I submit, if that monster, John Brown, 
had achieved his purpose, and had succeeded in 
arming fifteen hundred or two thousand slaves in 
Virginia with the murderous weapon which was 
prepared in New England for their use, and we 
had witnessed a bloody insurrection in this coun- 
try, should I be doing great wrong, great injus- 
tice, to the distinguished Senator from New York 
if I charged that he sympathized with this servile 
foe, that he approved this insurrection? I answer 
in his own language to such a charge, "The world 



without sympathizes with the servile foe;" and 
I why? Because 1 presume that the Senator from 
New York, speaking for his party, regards us, as 
expressed in your platform, as violators of the 
rights of humanity, and criminal in the eyes of 
God and of all Christian men. 

Mr. President, I am not prepared to allege that 
all the members of the Republican party, or that 
all the Republican Senators upon this floor, are 
ready to indorse this sentiment of the Senator 
from New York; I am not prepared to say that all 
of them hate slaveholders; but what I say is, that 
it is the predominant sentiment of the party which 
they represent. I censure them for not condemn- 
ing that sentiment in their midst; ay, fo» having 
encouraged it by the principles they avow, and 
the sentiments they profess. They have them- 
selves invoked a spirit in their midst which is 
"subtler than brute force and mightier than armed 
men. " They have themselves created a storm upon 
which they may ride to power, but which they 
cannot then control. We hear the low mutterings 
of its ominous thunder, and sometimes see the 
fitful gleams of its baleful lightning; and, sir, if 
no higher purpose could animate us, the mere 
brute instinct of self-preservation would impel us 
to prepare for the conflict, and the defense of our 
rights against that power which threatens their 
destruction — and which, so far as State legislation 
can, has destroyed them — by, if necessary, armed 
resistance. 

I speak, sir, as an American Senator, as an 
embassador from a sovereign and coequal State 
of this Union, with a due sense of my responsi- 
bilities to the people of my State, and to the Union 
— ay, of my responsibilities to myself. I have 
spoken, and will speak, in no terms of menace. I 
will not venture even to predict what my people 
will do. I only avow what I believe their honor, 
their love of independence, and their love of ex- 
istence itself will justify and require of them. I 
know how you have been accustomed to treat all 
intimations of a purpose or a power, under any 
circumstances of oppression, however grievous, 
to separate, to secede, and establish an independ- 
ent government on the part of the South. I 
know the Senator, who sits on your right, [Mr. 
Wade,] has laughed to scorn the idea of the 
southern people having the power or the will to 
resist the North, and to maintain their independ- 
ence out of the Union. I know that he indulged 
in every expression of contempt for our weakness, 
and of hatred of our crimes, and ended by declar- 
ing that any member of such a partnership would 
kick such a partner out. 

Sir, I do not choose to protract this discussion. 
I trust that I have said enough, and shown enough 
this morning to justify me in the positions I have 
taken. I have shown that by the non-action of all 
and by the legislation of some seven States in the 
northern part of this Confederacy — I have not 
prosecuted my inquiries long enough to ascertain 
whether there are others — a solemn obligation 
of the Federal Constitution for the restoration of 
fugitive slaves has 'been nullified, and that they 
have gone further in some of the States, and pun- 
ished criminally the carrying of a slave into them. 
1 have appealed to Senators to know whether they 
condemned this legislation; whether they were 
willing to keep that part of the covenant which 
our fathers made; whether if there were no legis- 



15 



lation by Congress on the subject, they would 
themselves adjure their party to enact laws to se- 
cure the rendition of fugitive slaves. I have asked 
them whether in case a vessel rilled with slaves, 
launched from the port of Charleston, on its way 
to Galveston in the State of Texas, was seized by 
any foreign Power, and our property confiscated, 
they would be willing to exert all the powers of 
this Government, either for its recovery, or for our 
remuneration; and whether they would merely 
claim through the representative of our Govern- 
ment in any such foreign court, of a Power that 
had thus abused our rights, any remuneration. I 
paused for a reply to all these questions. I asked 
them without passion, and in no offensive terms. 
Silence, silence, was the only response to all these 
interrogatories. I told you that I should construe 
your silence into an approbation of these acts nul- 



lifying the fugitive slave act, and you suffered me 
so to interpret it thereafter. 

Then the alternative presented to the South by 
your party, if you get the power, is that we must 
secede, or we must continue to pay taxes, to per- 
form military duty, to endure all "the burdens of 
this Government, while you disregard and violate 
some of the solemn obligation! which were in- 
tendedfor our benefit whenever the occasion arises; 
that we are to stand in the Union as subjects really, 
and not as free citizens: thatweari to stand in it as 
outlaws, who dare not pass the limits of tie slave- 
holding States with out' property, at the peril of 
its loss and even of our own personal liberty. 
If you think that this is just, that it is constitu- 
tional, that it is fraternal, it is impossible for us 
to harmonize, it is impossible for us to live under 
a Government administered by your party. 



Printed at the Congressional Globe Office. 



